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Andrew's Reviews > Children of the Mind
Children of the Mind (Ender's Saga, #4)
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Wraps up the series neatly enough . . . until you stop to think about how ridiculous the entire premise is or how annoying it is that everything seems to fit so nicely together.
I suppose I have to recant the part of my Xenocide review where I called the "birth" of Peter and Young Val "unnecessary." That was obviously a crucial episode for what Card had in store for the series conclusion. But I still won't take back the opinion that it's annoying.
Positives: After starting slowly, the plot did pick up around halfway through and was sufficiently interesting to keep me turning pages; there was a scene where the mothertrees started to fruit which was beautiful. . . by far the most emotional part of the book for me; there was much creativity in the solution to the Jane problem.
Negatives: Overall, the book was simply annoying. We were subjected again to far too many pages of the completely useless and unbelievable Quara, the inner turmoil of Miro (this time as he's deciding between Val and Jane), the completely incredible romance between Peter and Wang-Mu, tedious scenes between Ender and the second-least sympathetic character in the series Novinha (Card, if you're going to make her this unlikeable, you can't continue to subject the reader to her), and "recaps" from the previous books that went on for long paragraphs and I ended up just skipping. The chapter intros by Qiang-Jao brought nothing, and if anything had only the effect of reminding me of one of the most annoying characters from the previous book.
The entire concept of Peter and Young Val was inconsistent. They either have free will and are their own people (in which case Ender is like a God, to have enough soul to split in two), or they're not. If the former, they wouldn't need Ender anyway to continue living, and if the latter, there's no way they would ever be able to experience self-pity. There's no in between.
(view spoiler)
Overall, this and Xenocide could have been greatly condensed into one 500-600 page novel and been a masterpiece.
Not Bad Movie and Book Reviews.
@pointblaek
I suppose I have to recant the part of my Xenocide review where I called the "birth" of Peter and Young Val "unnecessary." That was obviously a crucial episode for what Card had in store for the series conclusion. But I still won't take back the opinion that it's annoying.
Positives: After starting slowly, the plot did pick up around halfway through and was sufficiently interesting to keep me turning pages; there was a scene where the mothertrees started to fruit which was beautiful. . . by far the most emotional part of the book for me; there was much creativity in the solution to the Jane problem.
Negatives: Overall, the book was simply annoying. We were subjected again to far too many pages of the completely useless and unbelievable Quara, the inner turmoil of Miro (this time as he's deciding between Val and Jane), the completely incredible romance between Peter and Wang-Mu, tedious scenes between Ender and the second-least sympathetic character in the series Novinha (Card, if you're going to make her this unlikeable, you can't continue to subject the reader to her), and "recaps" from the previous books that went on for long paragraphs and I ended up just skipping. The chapter intros by Qiang-Jao brought nothing, and if anything had only the effect of reminding me of one of the most annoying characters from the previous book.
The entire concept of Peter and Young Val was inconsistent. They either have free will and are their own people (in which case Ender is like a God, to have enough soul to split in two), or they're not. If the former, they wouldn't need Ender anyway to continue living, and if the latter, there's no way they would ever be able to experience self-pity. There's no in between.
(view spoiler)
Overall, this and Xenocide could have been greatly condensed into one 500-600 page novel and been a masterpiece.
Not Bad Movie and Book Reviews.
@pointblaek
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Reading Progress
June 30, 2009
– Shelved
Started Reading
July 1, 2009
–
Finished Reading
July 19, 2009
– Shelved as:
scifi-fantasy-horror
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Michael
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rated it 3 stars
May 29, 2013 04:31PM
Agree.
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Great review. You know what else bugged me? Am I wrong, or wasn't the entire issue with the fleet coming to the planet janes fault? Didn't she "tell" on Miro and Wanda in book 2? And Miro knew... Did everyone just forget that?
Ha ha echo my sentiments exactly. Should have stopped writing with xenocide. This book really bored me. Sad, because I absolutely loved the first three
Great review. I agree completely.
Excellent review. I completely agree. there was so much to be annoyed about with this book.
Andy wrote: "Great review. I agree completely."Thanks Darrell.
I just finished the book and this review is spot on.
Agree. Speaker for The Dead was the only good one to me. Ender's game is totally different.
Love your hot takes! Speaker for the Dead is one of my favorite novels, and yet I can't understand how beautiful a story was sandwiched in between the first Ender's Game and Xenocide/Children of the Mind. Card should re-write it per your analysis above. Also, I am struck by how some of the scenes esp. from Speaker, and of the mother trees as you mentioned, are so adaptable to the screen, yet I've never heard of these novels being planned for film adaptation. I would say the same goes for the entire Alvin Maker series.
Thanks Evan. Yeah I can't imagine we'll see more of Ender on screen after the first very uninspired adaptation bombed.
My exact thoughts the fourth book was an overdrawn out chapter. If there ever was an author milking a story for its success it works be this book. Sure we get important developments, but they didn’t need their own book. They never even solved the descaladores language and we spent so freaking long talking about it.
The part about Wang Mu being undeveloped as a character is true, half baked and not much depth to her. I did not even come to like Peter and her together, it was frustrating
